The resulting train of thought:
a) I never got to go to Disney World as a kid. Nutso boycott.
b) War of the Worlds looks like a rather stupid movie.
c) Minority Report was awesome -- remind me to buy it when I have money.
Boycotts are evidently a sometimes-efficacious way of raising support and awareness for a cause, so I can't categorically label them as stupid. Plus, after giving them a bit more thought, I can't really say that any boycott is stupid. The Almighty Dollar reigns in America -- it's one thing that just about everybody pays attention to, and cutting off a good chunk of its flow can go a long way toward affecting change. Connotations, symbols, and Bach Preludes got mixed up with my thoughts on that matter, too, but that might just be due to the fact that I scribbled notes on this while practicing piano. Bear with me.
I. Boycotts are stupid. I apparently have no sense of moral and civic duty.
I go to movies to see cool movies. Cool movies involve varying levels of the following:
a) cool acting
b) cool music
c) cool cinematography
d) cool ideas
e) cool plot
NOWHERE on here do you see "cool ideas and causes that the actors and/or film studio thinks and supports in real life."
Conversely, I avoid movies that are lousy. Lousy movies have varying levels of the following:
a) lousy acting
b) lousy music
c) lousy cinematography
d) lousily-put-together ideas
e) lousy plot
And just as I don't choose to watch movies because of any cool causes and ideas that the actors/filmmakers think and support in real life, I don't avoid movies because of the lousy causes and ideas that the actors/filmmakers support in real life. (And because I am sick of typing out all of those words, and because I like neologisms, someone's "Causes And Ideas Thought And Supported In Real Life" will hereafter be referred to as their caitasirli.)
When I go to see a movie, I am saying with my $7.00 "This is a cool movie -- make more movies like it." Or maybe "You do an awesome job acting! Keep it up!" Or maybe "Dude -- the cinematography in this was awesome!" Or, "Whoa! Awesome way of making me think about this subject!" I am not, in any way, trying to say, "Dude -- I support that personal crusade and ideology that you keep talking about on TV -- here's my way of donating some money to your righteous cause, man."
The same goes for music, and the same goes for books. When I purchase a product, I am making a statement about its inherent coolness or lousiness, not the coolness or lousiness of its makers' caitasirli.
If I wanted to support the guy's righteous cause, I'd make a donation.
Purchasing things on the basis of inherent coolness or lousiness, not the coolness or lousiness of its makers' caitasirli, has proved a quite freeing principle. I've successfully avoid lots of lousy books and music and films, and been able to watch/read/listen to a lot of cool ones.
I'm not paying good money to see Left Behind, because I'm pretty sure it's a lousy movie. The Veggie Tales movie was lousy. Most Christian music, apparently, has pretty lousy musicianship. In no way do I feel compelled to go buy that stuff just because the people making it have caitasirli I pretty much agree with. Or even because the caitasirli have infected the product.
::Searches for converse example...:: Oy. Ok. I like Babylon 5. It's cool. Does it bug me that the director is an atheist, and that some of those ideas infect the product, and that he probably donates stuff to causes I don't like? No way! I'm still buying it when I have money. I also think Phillip Pullman's books have awesome worldbuilding and "feel" and playing with ideas.
With actors in movies, you've got even more degrees of separation. Actor X donates money to missionary organizations and talks at Republican conventions. Umm...OK. Good for him? But if he's a lousy actor in lousy movies, I'm not going to watch them. Actor Y donates money to abortion clinics and talks at Democrat conventions. Boo! But if he's a cool actor in cool movies, I'm still going to see them.
I have no clue if the Dixie Chicks make lousy music or cool music. But my decision to listen to them wouldn't have anything to do with their political posturing. And Bach Preludes are awesome, regardless of whether he was a Republican/Democrat/Nazi/liberal/conservative/Christian/atheist.
Why does "me going to see War of the Worlds" = "me supporting scientology"? Or me going to Disney World = me supporting gay marriage?
This can honestly get pretty ridiculous. Look! I can play the game, too!
- Me buying a Steinway piano = me supporting the KKK! Woot! (Three of employees in the factories donate 1% of their income to them! ::gasp!::)
- Me buying a loaf of tasty Harvest Delight bread = me supporting misogyny! (um...Amish-grown wheat comprises 25% of the flour?)
- Me buying an SUV = me supporting Al-queada! Oh...wait... (though the makers were obviously a little fed up with absurd connections, too).
Money talks, apparently. If you want someone's caitasirli to change, cutting their income until they change their caitasirli to something more of your liking tends to be a good way to do that. If you want certain caitasirli to get less money, cutting off the income of people who support said caitasirli does wonders.
Making Cruise a liability to film companies by having lots of people boycott every film he's in will make film companies either say "shut up and stop being a liability" or "you're fired." Refusing to buy things from companies with discriminatory policies will make them rethink their policies.
Sometimes just plain disapproval works. But throwing monetary discomfort into the mix makes even people who don't care about disapproval listen.
If it's not OFFICIALLY illegal to say certain things and have certain policies, we can still make it unthinkable and impossible.
Here follows the "I-am-lazy-and-am-going-to-let-some-famous-dead-guy-be-dramatic-for-me" quote:
The authority of a king is physical and controls the actions of men without subduing their will. But the majority possesses a power that is physical and moral at the same time, which acts upon the will as much as upon the actions and represses not only all contest, but all controversy. [...]
In America the majority raises formidable barriers around the liberty of opinion; within these barriers an author may write what he pleases, but woe to him if he goes beyond them. Not that he is in danger of an auto-da-fe, but he is exposed to continued obloquy and persecution. His political career is closed forever, since he has offended the only authority that is able to open it. Every sort of compensation, even that of celebrity, is refused to him. Before making public his opinions he thought he had sympathizers; now it seems to him that he has none any more since he has revealed himself to everyone; then those who blame him criticize loudly and those who think as he does keep quiet and move away without courage. He yields at length, overcome by the daily effort which he has to make, and subsides into silence, as if he felt remorse for having spoken the truth.
Fetters and headsmen were the coarse instruments that tyranny formerly employed; but the civilization of our age has perfected despotism itself, though it seemed to have nothing to learn. Monarchs had, so to speak, materialized oppression; the democratic republics of the present day have rendered it as entirely an affair of the mind as the will which it is intended to coerce. Under the absolute sway of one man the body was attacked in order to subdue the soul; but the soul escaped the blows which were directed against it and rose proudly superior. Such is not the course adopted by tyranny in democratic republics; there the body is left free, and the soul is enslaved. The master no longer says: "You shall think as I do or you shall die"; but he says: "You are free to think differently from me and to retain your life, your property, and all that you possess; but you are henceforth a stranger among your people. You may retain your civil rights, but they will be useless to you, for you will never be chosen by your fellow citizens if you solicit their votes; and they will affect to scorn you if you ask for their esteem. You will remain among men, but you will be deprived of the rights of mankind. Your fellow creatures will shun you like an impure being; and even those who believe in your innocence will abandon you, lest they should be shunned in their turn. Go in peace! I have given you your life, but it is an existence worse than death."
(Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America, Bk. 1 Chapter 15)
Ok...so my sister says that the democracy-master sounds like an evil mastermind giving a really lousy monologue.
"AND SO -- BWAHAHA! I SENTENCE YOU...TO LIVING DEATH!!!"
(hero scratches head) "So -- um...you're not killing me?"
"ARRHG! DIDN'T YOU HEAR WHAT I'VE SPENT THE PAST 23 MINUTES TRYING TO TELL YOU??!!"
But the appearance of informal social controls in the absence of formal ones (apologies if my terminology isn't exactly correct) is a pretty standard phenomenon. Or at least an unavoidable one, as far as I can tell.)
III. Symbols are important. And we're a culture of connotations.
It's rather unavoidable, however, to separate items from people from caitasirli. Especially when so many producers of goods don't want us to.
We have bake sales to raise money for causes. We have companies who say, "we donate 5 cents of every dollar spent on these shirts to cancer treatment!" We have advertisements saying, "You'll be cool like these people if you buy this (lousy) product." Or "You'll be a good citizen if you buy this (lousy) product." We show our coolness by wearing "cool" brands. We demonstrate our patriotism by buying and flying US flags. We show our support for AIDS research or US troops or any other conceivable cause by buying bumper stickers. Or by buying one of those "5 cents of every dollar" products.
We're TOLD to buy their products because of caitasirli. We buy stuff all the time not based on inherent value, but based upon the connotations and significance and caitasirli and connections it has. Woot for brand name logos splashed all over things. Woot for 10% of my purchase being donated to save baby woodchucks in Mongolia! Does it make it an inherently better shirt or cup? NO!!!
Which came first -- the chicken or the egg? Did this culture of connotations gives rise to boycotting, or did some genius realize that you could reverse the boycott effect to make money?
::headwall::
1 comment:
My guess would be that the "inverse boycott" effect is a direct result of the 70s or 60s. That's about when the idea of donating X percent of one's profit seems to have become popular. At least, my sketchy history research would indicate that.
On top of that, it's almost all for some environmental cause (<animal> in <rainforest or jungle> etc) or some humanitarian cause (fight <war or famine> in <obscure African nation> etc).
Boycotting has been around since (I would say, anyway) at least the 1770s, since that's when Americans minimized use of stamps to protest the Stamp Act. I know that technically they're protesting the taxes, but really they were protesting the higher prices the government was so thoughtful to give them, which is similar to a boycott in enough respects I'd say it works well enough to show that the boycott was used back then as well.
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